A Grand Terrifying Adventure

Today I started a Grand Adventure.  At least that's what I keep telling myself.  Mostly I want to call it a Terrifying Endeavor.  Maybe I should combine the two and call it a Grand Terrifying Adventure.  Yep.  That sounds about right.  Today I started a Grand Terrifying Adventure.

For several years now I have been a part of a group of ladies that prepares and serves food at the Mishawaka Food Pantry twice a month.  The pantry already serves free lunch every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week.  We just cover a couple of Wednesdays for them so that it helps their budget, chef and volunteers.  It's been an amazing experience and I love how God has been working to help us build relationships with the people there.  I have story after story about how God has touched lives through this ministry.  These two days of the month are days I look forward to and most of the time I believe I walk away more blessed than the people that I've served.

Anyway, the regular chef at the pantry had to have surgery and will be out about 8 weeks.  The pantry had this covered, but about a week and a half before the surgery, the person who was going to fill in had to back out.  So long story short ... I am filling in for the chef at the food pantry.  I've never done anything like this before.  I cook for five.  Like I said, I started a Grand Terrifying Adventure.

Let me tell you, serving twice a month with a handful of ladies is totally different than being the full time chef.  When we serve with the church, we make a menu, shop, each cook part of the meal and then show up and put it together and serve it.

That isn't quite the same when you are the full time chef.  This is how it works.  Basically, people donate to the pantry, or we pick up whatever items we can from the food bank.  All of these items go into cooler or freezer.  Then I walk into the cooler or freezer, see all of these random items and then figure out how to make something out of them for between 125 and 200 meals.

And while I'm at it, I have to try really hard not to let anything go to waste because everything is valuable. You know, like the yogurt that was donated yesterday but was out of date today.  We can't just serve it because of the date ... even though the yogurt really is still good for a few days.  It has to be cooked.  What do I make out of yogurt?  Google has been my friend.  On Thursday this week I think we are having mac and cheese made with yogurt.  I didn't even know that existed. I' ll let you know how it turns out.

Last week I trained.  Today was my first day.  Oh my goodness it was a doozy!  We served 192 meals.  Let me just say that that was more dishes than I've ever seen at once!  I'm so thankful for my mom and for another lady from my church that came and helped with dishes and clean up today.  They saved me hours of work.  I also had some amazing volunteers from the pantry that were a lot of help.


For the last week I've been repeating in my head "when I am weak, he is strong."  ("But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9). I keep telling people at the pantry that "I'm nervous, but God's got this."

I've asked a few prayer warriors I know if they would pray for me this week.  One was by text message.  I explained the situation and told her that there were random things at the pantry to cook from and that I really wanted some simple things to go with them ... like chicken broth or potatoes.  Her response back was "Dear Marcia, God definitely has a plan and you are a part of that.  AND.  He can provide potatoes."  That was Wednesday
morning last week.  Wednesday afternoon I walked into the cooler and what do you think had suddenly appeared?  That's right, potatoes!

Tomorrow is day two.

So ready or not ... one Grand Terrifying Adventure coming up.  But God's got this.